Investigating the Relationship between Level Five Leadership and Structural Empowerment with School Organizational Excellence through the Mediating Role of Teachers' Psychological Empowerment

Educational organizations play an important role in moving underdeveloped communities towards development. Having efficient and balanced educational organizations can help produce and expand other indicators of development. The undeniable impact of educational organizations, especially schools, on the development and political, economic, cultural and social integration, and improving the quality and effectiveness of these organizations has become an important issue for countries. Attention is paid to the quality of the global movement, and organizations that fail to do so are in danger of being destroyed. Organizational excellence is a strategic tool that helps organizations to achieve quality and competitive advantage in achieving their goals by identifying strengths and improvements to design and implement an ideal model for the growth and development of organizations. Educational organizations, especially schools, which are the major scientific institutions in the production of knowledge, skills, technology, and training of the future builders of the society should step forward as much as possible in the path of growth and excellence to become an organization. Leading companies move ahead of the competitive environment. Leadership styles are one of the factors affecting the organizational excellence of schools. Among the leadership styles, Level 5 leadership as a new perspective for 21st-century organizations can be the newest and at the same time the most practical model that puts organizations in an optimised position. Another prerequisite for the organizational excellence of schools is excellence in human resources. Teachers, as the most important human resource, provide the necessary ground for the progress, development, and in a more precise sense, excellence in schools. Comparing the current situation with the desired situation, as well as the success and continuous improvement of the country's schools with the schools of developed countries, indicate the lack of effectiveness and quality in our country's schools. Therefore, in order to improve the quality and compare the current situation with the optimal (ideal) situation of schools, the use of an organizational excellence model seems necessary. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer the question of how level five leadership and structural empowerment through the mediating role of teachers' psychological empowerment could lead to organizational excellence in schools.  

The present descriptive-correlational study is based on an applied purpose. The statistical population of the study was 16264 primary school teachers in Fars province. Considering the research population, the random sampling method of relative classes and Cochran's formula (at alpha level 0.05; error value 0.05 and p and q ratio equal to 0.5) was used, so the statistical sample size of 375 teachers was selected. To collect the data, four questionnaires of Cham Asmani (2007), Structural Empowerment of Kordanij, Bakhshizadeh and Fatholahi (2015), Psychological Empowerment of Spritzer and Mishra (1995), and Organizational Excellence of Amarloo (2017) were used. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the questionnaires were 0.96, 0.93, 0.94, and 0.91, respectively. 

In today's world, despite the rapid pace of change and transformation in various fields of education, economic, social, political, etc., every organization needs to move and adapt to changes and gradual improvement for survival and stability. Education, along with other institutions, according to its important and valuable mission, needs measures to be added to its agenda including the organization's attention to the organizational excellence of schools. In this regard, the results showed that Level Five Leadership has a direct, positive, and significant relationship at the level of 0.05 with psychological empowerment and organizational excellence of schools. Level 5 leadership has an indirect, positive, and significant relationship with the organizational excellence of schools through psychological empowerment at the level of 0.05. The structural empowerment variable has a direct, positive, and significant relationship at the level of 0.05 with psychological empowerment and organizational excellence of schools. Structural empowerment through psychological empowerment has an indirect, positive, and significant relationship at the level of 0.05 with the organizational excellence of schools. In order to continuously improve the organizational excellence of schools, it is suggested that education officials, in addition to selecting level five leaders for school management, provide teachers with a sense of competence, independence, and influence school affairs by delegating authority and empowering teachers in the formal school structure.